


Running Up That Building

by panther



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Order raid leads to the capture of Draco Malfoy and Vincente Crabbe. It has been six months since Draco was captured, five  since Crabbe broke down, four since he last spoke, three since Granger informed him his father was dead, two since Potter himself interigated him and one month ago Draco gave up. Things change, Draco feels liberated and starts to think and then Granger provokes him into breaking his silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Up That Building

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thejitterbug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejitterbug/gifts).



> I decided to go for prompt 2: 'I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.' I found it a very interesting quote and tired to use it as the base theme for my piece. The relationship is subtle but I felt it worked best with the prompt and hope that you like it thejitterbug! It was fun to write for you and this was a wonderful exchange! Placebo's cover of 'Runing Up That Hill' was a heavy infuence on this fic I listened to it many times while writing this piece.

Six months. That had been how long Draco had been their prisoner. Six months since the Order of the Phoenix had been ready for a raid on one of their safe houses. Five months since he was informed that Crabbe had broken down mentally and been removed from the house Draco was now kept in and sent to the Janus Thickey Ward at St Mungos. Four months since he had spoken to a single person. Three months since Granger had given him his evening meal one night and stood in the doorway with a sad expression and dark eyes before informing him that his father had been killed by the Dark Lord and that his body had been put on display in Diagon Alley to show that no one was safe. Two months since Potter himself had come into the room bedroom he was kept in and demanded again for him to talk about what he knew. One month since he had given up all hope of ever being rescued from this place and making it back to his mother. He had given up on his beliefs about muggleborns being inferior and worthless, because at the end of the day it is him that is locked up in a room of what he had found out to he his mother's family's ancestral home. It isn't Hermione Granger. It isn't that twit Creevey or those irritating Hufflepuffs he knows. It is Draco Malfoy, the man who thought he was so much better than them all. To give up those feelings was strange, confusing, and yet he is far more content with himself after it.

It is strangely liberating. 

If he had nothing to hope for then he couldn’t possibly be disappointed about anything. Draco doesn’t know anything and he had told them that in the beginning. They had not believed him of course, and in a way Draco was surprised they had not just used Veritaserum to get what they thought he knew from him. Draco wasn’t important enough for that and he realised now that really, he was there just to amuse the Dark Lord and punish his parents. The mark he carried on his arm was the reminder of his naivety and arrogance. 

War changes people and that had never been more clear to Draco. His classmates have changed; it is as simple as that. Weasley has grown up and taken on a lot of responsibility and Draco’s observations lead him to believe that it was Weasley who was planning a lot of Potter’s strategy. Granger is different too. There is a cold and calculating look in her eyes so much of the time now. War is affecting her and tearing little pieces of her away just like it is with Draco. What side you are on doesn’t protect you from that. 

 

Blood didn't matter. His pure blood wasn't making him look any better than her. Draco looks just as pale and gaunt, his eyes just as lifeless, and his body language just as defeated. Letting go of the hopes of a world where her kind wouldn't be tolerated and being realistic about how really, they were not so different, mean Draco can look at Granger with fresh eyes. It is like he was beginning to really see her for the first time. 

 

*

“Malfoy, your tray, please” Granger barks suddenly, startling Draco out of his thoughts. Silently rising to his feet he hands her the tray that his evening meal had been placed on and for the first time in weeks, makes eye contact with her. 

Something strikes him and he blurts out his thoughts before he can think about how much of a bad idea it is or remember he had promised himself not to speak, “You look tired, Granger.”

Granger flicks her wand and sends the tray drifting off down the corridor, moving further into the room and shutting the door behind her. Another flick and Draco hears it lock shut, leaving the pair of them standing watching each other in silence. 

“Decided to speak I see. Your friends have been keeping us busy,” she replies, carefully, taking a close look at the blond. Most of the time someone just appear, dumped a tray, not always caring if the contents actually stayed on it, and left, “Want to name some of them for us?”

“Not really,” Draco drawls, retreading from her and sitting down on his single bed again. The rest of the room was bare apart from a small nightstand and a single wooden chair, which Granger moves to sit in.

“Things would be better for you if you helped us,” Granger states quietly. 

“Better? Granger, freedom is the only way this gets better. I've seen what it can mean to be a prisoner and there is nothing you can offer me to talk. I don't know anything that can help you anyway.”

“That is not for you to decide, Malfoy,” Granger snaps, colour filling her cheeks as she narrows her eyes at the blond and stares him down, “Peope are dying out there.”

“And I am not one of them,” Draco snaps back, feeling his emotions start to boil over. Being a prisoner of war was not what he had pictured for himself when he had joined the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters but at least he was _alive_ and that is what is important.

“You've decided to talk again; you might as well say something worthwhile,” Granger snaps before getting back to her feet, “I thought your time in silence might have made you think.”

“I have been thinking. I've been thinking that you look tired. Clearly things are not going as well as planned,” Draco taunts, expecting to get a rise out of the Gryffindor, confsed when she just smirks at him.

“You might not have been giving us information, Malfoy but that doesn't mean no one else has but from what we've learned, your old friends think the one feeding us informaiton is _you_. Think about that,” she states coldly before storming from the room and slamming the door behind her. As usual, everything falls silent as the spells go back into place. Draco is not allowed to hear the rest of the house. He doesn't hear the panic or the celebrations. 

He is exposed to nothing but eerie silence.

* 

Longbottom brings his lunch and Draco doesn't talk though the other man gives him a side-long glance. He obviously knows that Draco has spoken to Granger but he doesn't bring it up. He does however look tired and worn out, and thin. This is not the boy that Draco remembers from Hogwarts. He has been forced to grow up and suddenly Draco remembers what his aunt did to this boy. For a moment he torments himself and imagines it is him that had his parents tortured into insanity. 

Whether Draco respected them or not, he had to admit that the Aurors had skill and the Longbottoms were no different. War did that. His _family_ did that, and there was nothing tainted about Longbottom's blood.

Nothing at all.

*

“Had time to think?” Granger questions as she bursts into the room three days later with a tray of food. Draco jumps, having lost track of time, and stares at her with wild eyes, “I will be back in ten minutes. Others need fed. If you've anything to say to me, you can say it then.”

Then she is gone and Draco is left sitting there watching the door she had shut behind her. Draco had indeed had time to think. He thought about all the people he had been told were dead since arriving at his personal prison. He thought about the faces that used to bring him meals and no longer did. He thought about his approaching twenty-first birthday and how he was going to spend it locked up.

“Problem with your food?”

“I was thinking,” Draco murmurs before picking up the tray and sitting it on his lap, Granger quirking an eyebrow before once again taking the seat opposite him. 

“Feel like sharing?”

“I'm twenty-one soon,” Draco begins slowly, “I should have been married by now. I would be expected to provide my father with an heir befre I turned twenty-five. All of that is gone now. I don't have anything to show for my life.”

 

Granger listens, but doesn't say anything, though Draco expects a sarcastic responce.

“I have not been lying to you, Hermione,” Draco chokes out, “I don't know anything else. The Dark Lord is paranoid about spies. Everything is on a need to know basis and I was never high enough up to need to know anything.”

“What if I bring you a list of names? You've heard them before but this time will you confirm whether they are Death Eaters or not to the best of your knowledge?” Hermione says softly, this time sounding a little more unnerved by Draco's tone and the use of her first name. 

They both sense what a moment this is. Draco is not all out switching sides but once he starts to help them then there is no turning back. Yet, they already think he is a traitor.

“I can try.”

*

Every name he confirms makes Draco physically ache. It makes Draco a grass and several times he thinks he might be sick. Granger takes notes with a quill, as one of the Patils hovers and observes. He talks until his throat is dry and Patil has to bring him some water before he can continue, telling them names and facts he wasn't aware he knew before. 

It leaves him exhausted and unsettled. He has crossed a line, and for once he is glad to see Granger when she appears in his room later that night after his dinner, if only to give him something to focus on.

With a sad smiles she places a large glass of firewhiskey on his bedside table and then takes the chair in the middle of the room and pulls it closer to the bed before sitting down with her own glass. 

“You did the right thing, if that helps,” Hermione begins, “I thought you could use a drink.”

“I don't think a drink will help me come to terms with my new status us a grass,” Draco sneers, taking a gulp of the firewhiskey anyway and shuddering as it burns down his throat.

“The Order wouldn't make a move on Parkinson until we had someone confirm her status. It is the way that we do things. You saved lives today. She is twisted,” Hermione mutters.

“She has reason to be. The things she has seen and been through would make your skin crawl,” Draco sneers, feeling his stomach drop at Pansy's name. How he missed the girl he used to know.

“I doubt it,” Hermione states curtly, pulling up the sleeve ofher robe to show Draco her arm, and more importantly the carving of _mudblood_ that his aunt had left in her skin over three years before. 

“What happens to me now? Do I get rewards for good behaviour?”

“No,” Hermione mutters, trying and failing to hold back the smile that crosses her face, “But we will remember what you have done. Harry says it won't be forgotton and when the time comes people can vouch for what you have said.”

“You still believe that you can defeat him?” Dracao demands, stunned. 

“We have held out this long haven't we?”

“You're made of stronger stuff than I thought. I have to hand it to you Hermione.”

“Why have you started to call me that?” Hermione asks after a drink of her whiskey, “What changed?”

“Told you, I did some thinking,” Draco answers swiftly, shifting about uncomfortably on his bed, “Being a pure blood has not done me much good has it? At war or not, at least you can go outside.”

Hermione doesn't talk to him again, merely drinks her firewhiskey in silence. The whiskey comes every night for ten days and they talk, about the war, and about the past and then it just stops.

*

Hermione doesn't return to Draco's room for weeks and he finds himself hurt and then irritated, both with himself and her. It is not like he thought that they were _friends_ but still. _Still_. It takes him three weeks to come to terms with the idea that he does in fact miss her. It takes him a further week to talk to someone and ask where she is.

“Oh, Hermione? There was a raid. She got hurt,” Longbottom mumbles, a grown man yet still Draco can see he is a little afraid of the unarmed Death Eater.

“Hurt?” Draco demands, rising to his feet and putting his dinner to the side, forgotton, “What in Merlin's name does that mean, Longbottom?! Will she be ok?”

“I don't know, alright? No one does. Eat your dinner and shut up.”

*

He slips away again after that, into the silence of his room, the oblivion of his mind. There is nothing to focus on anymore. There is nothing to care about. He has given up all of his secrets, lowered his defences enough to prevent there being any point in putting up a facade, and he doesn't bother to think about the future any more. Draco remembers what was and what could have been. He thinks about the handshake that Potter never took and the words the sorting hat whispered in his mind. 

Days pass. Then a week. Another. 

Then Hermione is back.

* 

Draco doesn't leap out of his bed the minute he sees her and he doesn't sigh, or express his relief, or even smile. He merely nods and accepts the glass of firewhiskey. They continue their conversations as if the weeks haven't passed and Hermione doesn't have a fresh scar across her other arm and a slight limp as she moves into the room. 

Draco has long since realised that he is the only prisoner that she visits on the top floor of Grimmauld Place. He never comments on it and neither does she. He doesn't know when the end will come and what it will mean for them. Draco has played his cards. Hermione has played hers. They can only drink their whiskey, hope, and wait to see what the next set of cards they are dealt have in store for them.


End file.
